Washington ? Calling allegations that he spied for Iran a “smear,” Iraqi politician Ahmad Chalabi lashed out at the Bush administration Sunday, three days after Iraqi police backed by American forces raided his Baghdad home.

Chalabi, once the choice of leading Defense Department civilians to run Iraq, said his calls for Iraqi sovereignty and an end to the U.S. occupation had made him unpopular with the Bush administration, which he said was running a failed occupation.

Chalabi said he would cooperate with any U.S. investigation, but not with an Iraqi one. He volunteered to testify before Congress, where he still counts a number of supporters. As investigators continue their search for several of his associates in the Iraqi National Congress, he blamed CIA Director George Tenet personally.

“This charge is put out by George Tenet,” Chalabi told ABC’s “This Week.” “Let Mr. Tenet come to Congress. And I am prepared to come there and lay out all the facts and all the documents that we have and let Congress decide whether this is true. Or whether they are being misled by George Tenet.”

A U.S. intelligence official described Chalabi’s allegations as “absurd.”

“We would welcome hearing from him before Congress under oath,” said the official, who requested anonymity. A suitable line of questioning, the official said, would be the allegation “that Tenet and the CIA had trumped up these charges against him.”

Chalabi has long been a controversial figure in the Bush administration and Congress, bitterly opposed by influential players in the CIA and the State Department who mistrust him.